That a picture is worth a thousand words is a fact that has found its best expression from a photograph carried by this newspaper yesterday. It shows, among other things, burqa-clad women waiting for free naan or roti (bread) at a distribution point in KPK’s capital Peshawar.
It is said that dignity disappears when your children are starving. A number of deaths caused by a stampede in Karachi in particular during people’s struggle for free ration recently is another case in point.
Prohibiting price hike and inflation have broken the back of even middle class people, who have been finding it extremely difficult to make their ends meet as they too are feeling the brunt of the economic turmoil in the country.
Last but not least, it was yesterday that State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) again hiked its interest rate with a view to taming the rising inflation. My question is whether the policy of hiking interest rates is producing the desired results. I don’t think so because we have been eroding our purchasing power on a daily basis.
Various analysts have projected the collapse of textile industry, the major foreign exchange earner and the largest employer in private sector. Ours is a country that is said to be on the brink of economic meltdown.
In my view, however, economic collapse has already taken place. Our politicians know too well that the country is in an economic crisis. But none of them has any solution to help defuse the crisis; everyone seems to be the part of problem.
Nighat Fatima Qizilbash (Peshawar)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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